66 SUDDEN FLOODS IN DRY CANONS. 



represents that for most of the distance it was through 

 these high walls, impassable as a fortress, a dungeon 

 over a cataract." * 



The risks incurred in traversing these places even 

 in their dry state, when there is no water at the bot- 

 tom, are however still very great on account of the 

 liability to sudden floods, which when they occur sweep 

 everything before them with irresistible violence; it 

 will be sufficient to quote a single instance of this 

 kind, which will convince the reader that this danger 

 is neither imaginary nor exaggerated. 



It occurred about 1868 in the Apache country in 

 Arizona, and we give the story on the authority of 

 Mr. J. Ross Brown, an American gentleman, who 

 states that 



" A very singular and tragical occurrence took place about 

 two months previously to my visit. Some time in the month 

 of July two men with- their wives and three children started 

 from Aurora in a waggon for Big Meadows. The distance 

 is twenty-eight miles; when they were about half way, and 

 were passing through a rocky canon, unsuspicious of danger, 

 they observed some signs of rain; but thought it was nothing 

 more than a casual shower. Suddenly the sky darkened, and 

 they heard a loud roaring noise behind them. The men, 

 finding the horses unmanageable from fright, jumped out, and 

 scarcely had they touched the ground when they saw a solid 

 wall of water, about six or eight feet high, like a prodigious 

 wave breaking upon a beach in a storm. Before anything 

 could be done the torrent burst upon them, and the waggon 

 was instantly capsized and dashed to pieces on the rocks. 

 In less than a minute nothing was left to mark the tragedy : 

 women, children, waggon, and horses, all had disappeared. 



* A Summer Vacation in Colorado, by Samuel Bowles, 1869, pp. 

 84 and 85. 



